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Originally Posted by MeTh0Dz
Python is far from mainstream, it's community is still very small. Just saying it's used for something does not mean that it is widely used.
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I disagree. I will say that Python has become mainstream. It's true that it hasn't as many users as other languages, and its community still not is as big as the others, but everything has to start somewhere, and I think that Python has become mainstream over the years, and that it still is. If you check some of all the statistics and other graphs of usage and popularity, like
TIOBE and
Langpop, you can see that Python in most of the cases is in the top 10, even above languages like C#.
A lot of projects do use Python, both commercial projects and non-commercial. Many games (like Battlefield, Crysis, ...) use Python as a scripting-backend for various tasks (and some games, like EVE Online, have even based most of the game on Python), Nokia uses Python extensively for their Series 60, and so does Google, NASA, YouTube, and so on.
Back to the discussion about C/C++ and Assembly versus everything else. I don't think your way of looking at things at is smart (no offense). You can't compare languages in general. You'll have to compare them in concrete situations. If I'm developing a system for parsing data from files (eventually XML, or some user-defined structure) for use in an application I would choose Python, because it has great facilities for string manipulation, built-in regex module, etc., and I would give a rat's *** if C is good at graphics or GUI development. It was just an example and it may sound stupid, but my point is that you can't choose a language from an overall perspective, but you must choose a language after the situation you're in or the project you're working on. purcellgal is a beginner. That is his (or her) situation. That's why I recommended Python; because
I think it's best for beginners, while you recommended C/C++ and Assembly, simply because they're some good average languages. You shall not always care about what languages can or not can, but also how the productivity in the languages is, whether the languages have good documentation, and so on.
A last note. Don't get me wrong: I love C/C++ and Assembly, and they're my languages of choice (yes, I do prefer them over Python), but I simply don't see them as beginner languages.
My opinion...
(PS. It's not a solution to drag other members into a discussion, when they're not even aware of it. In this case it was WingedPanther.)